1. Field of the Invention
The invention is in the field of medical monitoring devices which monitor and assess patient medical conditions and provide patient alerting when relevant medical events are detected.
A growing number of medical monitoring, storage, and alerting systems have evolved to assist in providing modern medical treatments. These systems can alert a patient when medically significant events occur in order to enable adequate intervention in the treatment or amelioration of disorders and their symptoms. These events can simply be times at which a patient is scheduled to take medication, or can be events which are detected by an implanted device, such as an electrical stimulator or drug pump, which is configured to sense biological activity and to detect the occurrence of medically relevant abnormalities. One area in which these devices are beginning to play a central role is in the treatment of neurological and cardiac disorders. The ability to monitor, detect, and predict cardiac abnormalities related to, for example, ischemia can decrease the fatalities related to these disorders. In response to such detection patients may be provided with sufficient prior warning to allow them to obtain treatment or other intervention before having a fatal heart attack.
2. Prior Art
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,112,116, 6,272,379, 6,468,263, 6,609,023 and 6,985,771 Fischell et al describe such systems for acute detection and warning, as well as for communication between an implanted device and a central diagnostic station, however, these do not describe capabilities related to increasing the efficiency, reliability, and utility of communication between the patient, the implanted device, an external patient device, local bystanders, emergency medical personnel, a physician, a translator, and the central diagnostic station. Other relevant prior art are U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,980,851 6,741,885 and US applications 2005/0177049, 2003/0083582 and 2003/0004548, which describe measurement and storage of cardiac data, and also describe providing alarms in response to detection of abnormal events.
Fischell et al., in US Patent Application 2005/0113705, describe a Cardiotracker system which allows for extended recording of cardiac data. John et al, in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2007/0208263, entitled ‘Systems and Methods of Medical Monitoring According to Patient State’ describes a CardioTrend system. This application supplements these two other applications.
Advanced warning systems (AWSs) offer a number of features which are advantageous in dealing with life threatening disorders such as myocardial infarction, stroke, seizure, and syncope. AWSs can provide various types of warnings to a patient. These may be auditory alert signals which are coded temporally tonally, and by volume, and have characteristics which reflect the seriousness and type of medical event which was detected. AWSs, such as those described in 2003/0149423 (the '423 application, to Fischell) allow for communication with a central diagnostic station, where a medical practitioner evaluates the data which have been sent and determines if the patient should be alerted or not. Other advantages are also provided in '423, for example, when an alarm is triggered and data is sent to the central station, the medical practitioner can rapidly and conveniently communicate with the patient over a wireless connection such as a cellular connection, and can utilize a satellite communication/tracking system to localize the patient's location similar to the ONSTAR system available in many modern vehicles. When indicated, the practitioner can rapidly send an emergency medical team (EMT) team coordinates to the patient's location or can relay information to the patient about the location of the nearest hospital.